Cruelbreed
06-25-2009, 07:27 PM
ISLAMABAD — President Barack Obama's national security adviser reiterated the United States' strong support for Pakistan in its battle with Taliban militants during talks with senior Pakistani leaders on Thursday.
Islamabad, meanwhile, called for an end to U.S. missile attacks on its soil, two days after a suspected drone strike killed 80 people in the country's northwest.
Gen. James Jones discussed Washington's revamped strategy for the volatile region during talks with Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari during his two-day visit to Islamabad.
He stressed that the two nations face a common battle against extremists.
"Terrorism is not simply the enemy of America _ it is a direct and urgent threat to the Pakistani people," Jones said in a statement after meetings.
The Obama administration has made the region a focus of its foreign policy, and is deploying an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan in an attempt to tame a growing Taliban insurgency there. Pakistan shares a long and porous border with Afghanistan and has its own problems with militants, and Washington views Islamabad's role as crucial to returning stability to the region.
Gilani, meanwhile, voiced concern that the beefed up U.S. presence in Afghanistan could send a new wave of Afghan refugees across the border, his office said in a statement.
Islamabad is already grappling with its own internal refugee problem and would likely be ill-equipped to handle a new influx of people. Some 2 million Pakistanis have been forced from their homes by the army's offensive against Taliban militants in the swat valley, northwest of the capital.
contnued here...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/25/pakistan-asks-us-to-end-m_n_220869.html
Islamabad, meanwhile, called for an end to U.S. missile attacks on its soil, two days after a suspected drone strike killed 80 people in the country's northwest.
Gen. James Jones discussed Washington's revamped strategy for the volatile region during talks with Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari during his two-day visit to Islamabad.
He stressed that the two nations face a common battle against extremists.
"Terrorism is not simply the enemy of America _ it is a direct and urgent threat to the Pakistani people," Jones said in a statement after meetings.
The Obama administration has made the region a focus of its foreign policy, and is deploying an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan in an attempt to tame a growing Taliban insurgency there. Pakistan shares a long and porous border with Afghanistan and has its own problems with militants, and Washington views Islamabad's role as crucial to returning stability to the region.
Gilani, meanwhile, voiced concern that the beefed up U.S. presence in Afghanistan could send a new wave of Afghan refugees across the border, his office said in a statement.
Islamabad is already grappling with its own internal refugee problem and would likely be ill-equipped to handle a new influx of people. Some 2 million Pakistanis have been forced from their homes by the army's offensive against Taliban militants in the swat valley, northwest of the capital.
contnued here...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/25/pakistan-asks-us-to-end-m_n_220869.html